Socioeconomic Resilience : Multi-Hazard Estimates in 117 Countries
This paper presents a model to assess the socioeconomic resilience to natural disasters of an economy, defined as its capacity to mitigate the impact of disaster-related asset losses on welfare. The paper proposes a tool to help decision makers ide...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/885041478880630169/Socioeconomic-resilience-multi-hazard-estimates-in-117-countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25688 |
| Summary: | This paper presents a model to assess
the socioeconomic resilience to natural disasters of an
economy, defined as its capacity to mitigate the impact of
disaster-related asset losses on welfare. The paper proposes
a tool to help decision makers identify the most promising
policy options to reduce welfare losses from natural
disasters. Applied to riverine and storm surge floods,
earthquakes, windstorms, and tsunamis in 117 countries, the
model provides estimates of country-level socioeconomic
resilience. Because hazards disproportionally affect poor
people, each $1 of global natural disaster-related asset
loss is equivalent to a $1.6 reduction in the affected
country’s national income, on average. The model also
assesses policy levers to reduce welfare losses in each
country. It shows that considering asset losses is
insufficient to assess disaster risk management policies.
The same reduction in asset losses results in different
welfare gains depending on who (especially poor or nonpoor
households) benefits. And some policies, such as adaptive
social protection, do not reduce asset losses, but still
reduce welfare losses. Post-disaster transfers bring an
estimated benefit of at least $1.30 per dollar disbursed in
the 117 countries studied, and their efficiency is not very
sensitive to targeting errors. |
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